Publications by Ramon Pericet Camara

An artificial elementary eye with optic flow detection and compositional properties

Dario Floreano, Michal Karol Dobrzynski, Ramon Pericet Camara

We describe a 2 mg artificial elementary eye whose structure and functionality is inspired by compound eye ommatidia. Its optical sensitivity and electronic architecture are sufficient to generate the required signals for the measurement of local optic flo ...

2015

Hardware Architecture and Cutting-Edge Assembly Process of a Tiny Curved Compound Eye

Dario Floreano, Ramon Pericet Camara, Géraud L'Eplattenier

The demand for bendable sensors increases constantly in the challenging field of soft and micro-scale robotics. We present here, in more detail, the flexible, functional, insect-inspired curved artificial compound eye (CurvACE) that was previously introduc ...

Mdpi Ag2014

Miniature artificial compound eyes for optic-flow-based robotic navigation

Dario Floreano, Ramon Pericet Camara, Julien Jean Denis Nicolas Lecoeur, Gerard Bahi Vila

Miniature curved artificial compound eyes (CURVACE) represent a promising tool to assist in navigation of mobile robots. In particular, they feature ideal properties for minidrones to navigate safely in indoor environments due to its panoramic field of vie ...

IEEE2014

Curved artificial compound-eyes for autonomous navigation

Ramon Pericet Camara

Natural compound-eyes consist of a large number of ommatidia that are arranged on curved surfaces and thus are able to detect signals from a wide field of view. We present an integrated artificial compound-eye sensor system with enhanced field of view of 1 ...

SPIE-INT SOC OPTICAL ENGINEERING2014

Soft Cells for Programmable Self-Assembly of Robotic Modules

Dario Floreano, Jürg Markus Germann, Andrea Maesani, Ramon Pericet Camara

Programmable self-assembly of chained robotic systems holds potential for the automatic construction of complex robots from a minimal set of building blocks. However, current robotic platforms are limited to modules of uniform rigidity, which results in a ...

2014

Miniature curved artificial compound eyes

Dario Floreano, Michal Karol Dobrzynski, Ramon Pericet Camara, Géraud L'Eplattenier

In most animal species, vision is mediated by compound eyes, which offer lower resolution than vertebrate single-lens eyes, but significantly larger fields of view with negligible distortion and spherical aberration, and high temporal resolution in a tiny ...

National Academy of Sciences2013

Hyper-flexible 1-D shape sensor

Dario Floreano, Michal Karol Dobrzynski, Ramon Pericet Camara, Géraud L'Eplattenier, Stéphanie Lacour

Here we describe a sensor capable of perceiving complex one-dimensional (1-D) shape of an underlying substrate in a static and dynamic manner. The sensor consists of seven, serially connected, hyper-flexible strain gauges, manufactured using stretchable-go ...

2013

Contactless deflection sensing of concave and convex shapes assisted by soft mirrors

Dario Floreano, Ionut Halasz, Michal Karol Dobrzynski, Ramon Pericet Camara

Typical deflection sensors like strain gauges or devices based on optical fibers require physical contact with the deflected substrate during the measurement process. Such contact, however, impacts on the softness of the substrate and may falsify the measu ...

2012

Vision Tape - a flexible compound vision sensor for motion detection and proximity estimation

Dario Floreano, Michal Karol Dobrzynski, Ramon Pericet Camara

In this paper, we introduce Vision Tape (VT), a novel class of flexible compound-eye-like linear vision sensor dedicated to motion extraction and proximity estimation. This novel sensor possesses intrinsic mechanical flexibility that provides wide-range ad ...

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers2012

An Active Connection Mechanism for Soft Modular Robots

Dario Floreano, Michael Dommer, Jürg Markus Germann, Ramon Pericet Camara

To date, most modular robotic systems lack flexibility when increasing the number of modules due to their hard building blocks and rigid connection mechanisms. In order to improve adaptation to environmental changes, softness on the module level might be b ...

2012

Contactless deflection sensor for soft robots

Dario Floreano, Michal Karol Dobrzynski, Ramon Pericet Camara

In the emerging field of soft robotics, there is an interest in developing new kinds of sensors whose characteristics do not affect the intrinsic compliance of soft robot components. Additionally, non-invasive shape and deflection sensors may provoke impro ...

Ieee Service Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Po Box 1331, Piscataway, Nj 08855-1331 Usa2011

CURVACE - CURVed Artificial Compound Eyes

Jean-Christophe Zufferey, Dario Floreano, Michal Karol Dobrzynski, Ramon Pericet Camara, Géraud L'Eplattenier

CURVACE aims at designing, developing, and assessing CURVed Artificial Compound Eyes, a radically novel family of vision systems. This innovative approach will provide more efficient visual abilities for embedded applications that require motion analysis i ...

Elsevier B.V.2011

Arrays of microlenses with variable focal lengths fabricated by restructuring polymer surfaces with an ink-jet device

Ramon Pericet Camara

We report of a method for fabricating two-dimensional, regular arrays of polymer microlenses with focal lengths variable between 0.2 and 4.5 mm. We first make concave microlenses by ink-jetting solvent on a polymer substrate with a commercial drop-on-deman ...

Optical Society of America2007